Tag: 2nd Amendment Grass Roots
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Carpetbaggers: Of Moo And Cow
Last week, we looked at a troika of “gun rights” groups and their singular and plural records. Last Tuesday, we showed you a fundraising letter for a group called Minnesota Gun Rights (MGR) that Minnesota Second Amendment activists have been getting. In the letter – from “Minnesota Gun Rights” executive director Chris Dorr – the sky will fall if the…
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Carpetbaggers: Tomorrow
I’ll be back with the wrapup of my “Carpetbaggers” series tomorrow.
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Carpetbaggers: Not Of This World
Tuesday, we showed you a fundraising letter for a group called Minnesota Gun Rights (MGR) that Minnesota Second Amendment activists have been getting. Wednesday, we got a perspective from Iowa on the effectivess of the Iowa Gun Owners (IGO), run by the brother of MGR’s Executive Director. Yesterday, we looked at the ties between the Dorr…
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Carpetbaggers: In The Out Dorr
On Tuesday, we showed you a fundraising appeal from a group, “Minnesota Gun Rights” (MGR). MGR is making an entry into the Minnesota Second Amendment battle. Yesterday, we talked with an Iowa State Representative, Matt Windschitl, who pointed out that a group called the “Iowa Gun Owners” (IGO) had been talking big talk, but not…
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Carpetbaggers: All Or Nothing, And Nothing
Yesterday, we discussed a package that Minnesota gun rights activists have been receiving from a group calling itself “Minnesota Gun Rights”. I ran a bit of video from Representative Matt Windschitl, running down a group called the “Iowa Gun Owners”. It was a pretty acerbic video. And it opened up some questions; what was the…
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Carpetbaggers
There are a lot of Second Amendment groups. . Some – the NRA, the GOA, the Second Amendment Foundation – are big national groups that’ve been fighting the good fight for decades. Others are laser-focused on state-level Second Amendment issues. Others? ———- Gun control is a big issue these days. Oh, not with most of the…
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Watching The Astroturf Grow: Money Changes Everything
In the past week or so, the news got out that “ProtectMN” – the astroturf group almost entirely funded by Joyce Foundation – is getting some big-name help. Richard Carlbom, the PR whiz behind the “Vote No” movement re the Marriage Amendment, has started his own consulting operation. And as all consulting operations do in…
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Disclosure In The Dark
I write a lot about Second Amendment issues (among many other things) in Minnesota and nationwide. And I’m going to be writing a lot more about the subject in the coming year. It’s going to be one of those years. And since I’ll be writing a lot on the subject, I may as well get…
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Watching The AstroTurf Grow: “The New Dialog – We Talk, You Shut Up”
This past Friday, I talked with Susie Jones, a reporter from WCCO Radio, about the Gun Grab Summit in North Minneapolis. Now, I’m stuck in a bit of a conundrum, myself. On the one hand, I do seek a civil, grown-up dialog. As a gun owner, I have a vested interest in making sure my…
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I Heard It On The NARN
Join the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance. BTW – please “Like” GOCRA on Facebook.
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Because Racism
Earlier this week, the Joyce Foundation collected another installment on its payment for the MinnPost’s PR services in pursuit of disarming the American people – in this case, a “Community Voices” column by by Rebecca Lowen and Doug Rossinow, who are listed as “history professors at Metro State”. Those who fail to learn from history,…
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False Flag
Speaking of gun rights – GOCRA sends an advisory: There is a new astroturf group calling themselves “American Rifle + Pistol Association.” (Here’s the URL — I recommend against giving them PageRank by posting it, though: http://amriflepistol.com/ ) And I won’t post it as a link, for precisely that reason. They are Obama-cheering, gun-control-supporting, MSNBC-watching,…
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Dialogue
Who coulda seen this coming? Representative Michael Paymar got an op-ed placed in the PiPress last week. He used the space to complain about the way the session turned out for his gun control agenda. Now, as I noted a few weeks back, Paymar has settled into the legacy of Wes Skogland – who I once nicknamed…
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A State Without Limits
This one’s important, and needs some action on your part to prevent a corrosive overreach of government power. I also got this one from GOCRA yesterday; it’s not a “gun rights” thing, but it’s an important civil liberty issue, and it needs your attention: Minneapolis Police (as well as many other departments) use automated license…
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Accept No Substitutes
Gun rights people, listen up and pass the word. There’s an email going around from a “gun rights” group from out of state, soliciting donations and stirring the pot against legislators, including several who were invaluable in the session’s real big news – no gun control bills passed the legislature this session. Here are some excerpts from…
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A Tale Of Two Bills
The MNDFL, as part of their languid dawdling in social issues this past session, introduced two deeply controversial sets of bills. One was the raft of gun grab legislation that came out at the top of the session – everything from magazine restrictions and confiscations to background checks. As we chronicled in this space, the…
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This Is What Democracy Looks Like
The Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance sent out a press release yesterday: Senator Ron Latz (DFL-St. Louis Park) announced last night that he intended to resurrect a gun bill this morning, after the leadership had announced that there would be no gun bills heard this year.. We were able to mobilize a quick reaction from our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/gocra), and…
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Victory For Now
DFL Speaker of the House Thissen has pulled whatever was left of the Metrocrat gun grab agenda off the table. Several Democrats, mostly in the metropolitan area, were pushing for increased background checks for gun purchases but that legislation faced opposition from gun rights groups and rural Democrats. Thissen says he decided to shelve the…
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Ten Years
It was ten years ago yesterday that the Minnesota State Senate passed the Minnesota Personal Protection Act, making Minnesota a “Shall Issue” state. I was there, back during this blog’s infancy. I sat in the gallery in the Senate and watched as the Metro DFL did what they always do on Second Amendment issues; lie…
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The Emperor’s New Polls – What Are Words For?
Yesterday, we looked at a piece by Joe Loveland in the Twin Cities leftyblog Wry Wing Politics. WWP rates my ultimate endorsement for a leftyblog – its author isn’t in line for a harassment restraining order and remedial logic class. That’s all to the good. But he cited a series of media polls about the public’s…
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Zoom
As of yesterday, 132,552 Minnesotans have current, valid carry permits. And as the Gun Owners CIvil Rights Alliance notes, the rate of applications and issuances is zooming almost geometrically, even as the bobbleheads in our legislature try to ratchet back our Second Amendment rights: The increase over last month (7,213), is also a record, breaking…
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The DFL/Media/Anti-Gun Hot Tub Party
When you’re a conservative, distrust of the media – like most large institutions – is part and parcel of the job. You probably accept that, for whatever reason – from systemic bias to cultural confirmation bias to being paid off by George Soros – that the media has a comprehensive bias toward the left. And…
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The “Meh” Gun Bill
I went to the Capitol last night for the House Public Safety Finance Committee hearings on Michael Paymar’s “HF 237”, better known as “The Bad Gun Bill”, a bill rife with nannystate abuse-fodder. The rest of the story? It’s got a lot of photos, and I don’t want the entire blog to load like a…
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The Incredible Floating DFL Committee Meeting
When the subject is the Second Amendment, the DFL has a long standing pattern of moving committee meetings around, largely to keep non-DFL constituencies from being able to drive in from Greater Minnesota. And they’re doing it again. The Public Safety Committee hearing originally scheduled for this morning at 10AM has been pushed to 7…
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Once More Unto The Breach
Another Tuesday, another hearing: VICTORY GOES TO THOSE WHO SHOW UP Tomorrow (Tuesday, March 19) at 10 a.m., the House Public Safety Committee will hear and vote of HF237, Rep, Paymar’s Punish Gun Owners Act. We need to show up in large numbers to tell the House members to REJECT the infringing bill and instead…